The housing of a portable electronic device generally defines a space in which various heat-generating components are contained. The heat-generating components are typically mounted on boards, which are themselves attached to the housing. Larger portable electronic devices, such as, laptops, are known to include conductive or phase change mechanisms, such as, heat pipes, that move heat from the heat-generating components to other locations in the electronic devices for dispersing the heat. The dispersal of heat is often enhanced through use of fans, which are configured to move air for the purpose of dissipating heat from the phase change mechanism or from the heat-generating components themselves. The larger portable electronic devices are often capable of employing heat-generating components having relatively high power densities because they are typically equipped with sufficiently large batteries to enable the fans to be operational whenever the heat-generating components are in operation.
Smaller portable electronic devices, however, are typically not equipped with phase change mechanisms or fans because they often do not include components that generate relatively large amounts of heat. Instead, the heat generated by these components is typically dissipated through the housing of the devices. As the computing power of the smaller portable electronic devices increases, however, conventional techniques for dissipating the heat generated by these components will most likely be inadequate. To dissipate the ever-increasing heat loads, the smaller portable electronic devices are likely to include powered cooling devices, such as fans. However, because the batteries contained in smaller portable electronic devices are relatively small, the additional power requirements of the powered cooling devices will negatively affect the performance of the batteries, thereby negatively affecting the performance of the electronic devices themselves.
It would therefore be beneficial to have the ability to cool relatively high power density heat-generating components in relatively small portable electronic devices, while substantially maximizing battery performance.